It’s official: In case some of you haven’t noticed, chivalry is seriously dead. I was hoping that it was just a cliché, and that there was hope out there for men to be the gentlemen they are, but alas, I was wrong.
And that pisses me off.
Exhibit A: Today, I was helping my sister move out of her dorm room, as the UA academic year has nearly ended. With no strong males in sight, I was forced to carry her bulky, extremely heavy TV down three flights of stairs and more than 300 feet out to the parking lot. Meanwhile, a freshman football player (a running back who is 6 feet tall and 203 pounds, muscular), who shall remain nameless, stood by and watched me struggle, grunt, tear up and nearly drop the TV set three times. Not ONCE did this cocky athlete offer me help. He just thought it would be more amusing to stand by, watch, and snicker at my attempt.
Once again, chivalry is dead and gone. All you ladies out there, we are without hope. All you men out there, you disappoint me.
This article appears in May 10-16, 2007.
I don’t think the problem is that chivalry is dead. I think the problem is that UA undergraduate males are assholes.
So let’s see: ONE guy acts like a jerk. Therefore ALL guys are jerks.
I guess you failed Logic 101.
No, Mr. Sleestacked, now it appears that TWO men have acted like jerks.
HA!
A lot dem muscle dudes get weerd around dem transvestites esp dey see girl carrying one on back to da lot.
Just out of curiosity, Kelli, why didn’t you just ask the guy for help?
Red Star I find it highly offensive that you just called me a transvestite. Of course your unintelligent form of communicating made it difficult for me to even understand what you were saying.
Kelli Hart: Things go wrong. You probly hot he got all flustered clumsy stupid. You are hot, aren’t you?
(1) Your sister should sell that bulky TV ASAP and get a flat-screen! I am serious — SELL FAST before such TVs all become worthless doorstops! She should have sold it on Craigslist and let the buyer move it out themselves.
(2) Next time you have to move a big, heavy object like that, use a dolly. Many things that normally take 3 people to move can be safely moved by just 1 person with a dolly.
(3) It sounds like you know this guy personally. I mean, you know his weight down to the nearest pound, and you know his name. Is there a relationship there? Maybe you two should see a counselor. I hereby offer my services for $10.
Be nice to Kelli. She is just venting. That’s what blogs are for. (Kelli…pay no attention to the anonymous dillweeds…)
Haha, thanks T.E. Edwards. And Vertigomer, I looked up the kid on AZ Athletics to verify to everyone his capabilities of lifting heavy objects. The dolly didn’t work, the TV was so bulky it kept falling off. And no, I don’t know him but my sister did.
Kelli Hart is all woman.
Red Star, for someone who writes so much in this blog, it surprises me that I can still rarely understand what you’re saying. If you stop frontin’, maybe then we can proceed with the proceedings.
You should have done like they did at the beginning of the old comedy show “SCTV” and tossed the TV out the window.
Saxon, trans women are “all woman” too.
Red Star, you’re an ass.
Kelli, I think mainly it’s that jocks are assholes.
Me personally, I couldn’t help. I am oldish, out of shape, and have back problems. That doesn’t excuse a football player who, presumably, is better equipped to help from doing so.
i’ll help and won’t disappoint you!
Kynn — Red Star said transvestite, not transgender. Two very different things. Thanks.
Kelli,
Why didn’t you take the elevator?
Too bad there weren’t some old dudes around, they still have the chivalry gene and would’ve helped you and probably risked getting a hernia too.
Talk about easily amused…this football guy sounds like a real winner. I’d have helped you; last year my sister and I had to lug my enormous CRT tv back to the store when it malfunctioned…so now I have a flat one that weighs about 25 lbs. Just doing my part to deprive football players of free entertainment!
Help you? This jock should jeopardize a scholarship because you need some help? I don’t blame him.
Who carried it up there?
You crybaby.
Thanks for the direct personal insult, Kelli. From your account it seems completely called for. This is exactly the kind of story that keeps me coming to this blog.
Nobody told Red Star they still bringin dem televisions to school. Now we see, it’s GIGO.
)
Oh, true, Saxon. I admit that I do pass over nearly everything that Red Star says with only a brief skim, since I have yet to find him saying anything worth reading.
Women suck. So there. Nyah.
Seriously, this is a crap topic to begin with.
Come on, Michael, you can do better than that. How about an anecdotal account to go along with it, at least?
It figures that in a TW blog full of articles about gas prices, Mormon abuses, state budgets, Palestinian child propaganda, and other interesting news, the one blog that people really flock to is about how much “men suck.”
Isn’t the line between chivalrous and patronizing behavior a lot thinner than we’re all acknowledging? For example, if the football player had offered to help you with the TV you could have just as easily criticized him for assuming that you needed help becuase you’re a woman. In other words, criticizing a man for not helping a woman is just as easy as criticizing a man for helping a woman. I’m NOT saying that, becuase of feminism, men should never offer to help women with anything. What I am saying is that offering to help someone that doesn’t need it can be just as bad as neglecting to offer help to someone who does.
I’m surprised no one brought this up yet.
Carrie, fair comment.
I simply don’t believe in painting an entire gender as being good or bad simply because of one incident. I found the approach to the topic as an opportunity to make a taunting response that belongs more on the schoolyard than among adults.
The women I know run the gamut in beliefs, and, yes, hostility to chivalry (which stems from a firm belief that having a man do something for a woman places them as subordinate instead of an equal peer). To pinpoint any one of my female friends as the mold for all females would be ludicrous. Just like saying the jock who wouldn’t move the TV set represents all males.
That’s why I find this dumb.
Mind this, too (just an aside): there is an entire genre of thought that completely rejects the dichotomy of genders and suggests that people fall on a wide spectrum of perceived gender roles — i.e. just because someone has a weiner does not mean they are a “man” but instead are somewhere on the spectrum where 1 might be full-bore masculinity and 10 might be total feminity (or vice-versa numbers wise). It’s a train of thought somewhat similar to the idea of androgyny.
So, in that case, men cannot suck because we are all just “humans” and not anything more than that.
Not that I am either endorsing, rejecting or placing any opinion on that idea. Just highlighting it.
Final word, new topic: if someone encounters a situation where they need help, they should never be afraid to ask.
A lot these tings like Kelli scribin for us go like dat Tracy Hepburn cinema vulnerability ting all da fear ask da help, don ask for da help, so go easy. gim dem 2 da time. she knowin…dem proceedings…
What if chivalry isn’t dead, but is in fact a flesh-eating zombie? Wouldn’t you rather that chivalry WERE dead?
Chivalry isn’t dead, but it’s in sure need of CPR.
To many of you men who failed to notice, I included the word “sometimes.” Notice, my title didn’t say “The entire gender of men, including every living breathing man, SUCKS.” I simply encountered a situation that I wanted to bring up and see how many people I could get to interact and debate on the topic. Looks like I achieved my goal.
(No delete that previous one.)
All you men out there, you disappoint me.
Explain this one and how it does not slam the entire gender.
O
Kelli, you did say “sometimes” in your headline, but in the body text you wrote “All you men out there, you disappoint me.” You did not say “Some of you men disappoint me.” So…..mexed missages.